


Heaven Scent

by A_Diamond



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Bakery, Baker Castiel (Supernatural), Buttertacles Attacks Take 2, Donuts, Drama with a Happy Ending, First Meetings, Hostage Situations, M/M, Omega Castiel, Omega Dean, Police Officer Dean, True Mates, Two magic buttholes for Jojo, We Are All Jojo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2019-02-06 02:54:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12808080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Diamond/pseuds/A_Diamond
Summary: What Dean wants is a box of donuts (with at least one heavenly apple fritter in it). What he gets—is not a donut.





	Heaven Scent

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jojodacrow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jojodacrow/gifts).



> Jojo of all our hearts, we love you. I hope you enjoy all the little presents we've made for you, because you deserve ten thousand of them.
> 
> Buttertacles crew, y'all are dangerous and wonderful.

Stereotypes are bad. Lots of them are negative, and even the ones that aren’t can be problematic. No one likes to have assumptions made about themselves, their habits, or their families and friends, just because of who they are, what they look like, and so on.

Dean knows this.

He also knows that some stereotypes are based on truth, no matter how distorted or offensive they are. Some of them are more inaccurate than others, some more harmful than others, but a lot of them come from somewhere.

That doesn’t mean anyone wants to get caught fulfilling them. It’s embarrassing, but more than that, it’s depersonalizing. They’re not an individual anymore, they’re just the living, breathing embodiment of a stereotype. No one really enjoys that feeling.

Which is why, when he’s standing at the counter and he hears a man behind him yell for nobody to move, he’s got a gun and will fucking use it, all Dean can picture is the headline of the news article that’s absolutely going to go viral:

_Cop Shot in Donut Store Robbery_

He’s out of uniform, on his way to work. He was just trying to cheer his squad up at the end of a hard week, and, well. Cops and donuts really are a thing. This bakery is one he’s never come to before, though he’s sampled their wares when other people brought them in. They’re the best donuts he’s ever had, no room for debate. Airy raised glazed, rich and moist chocolate cake, and apple fritters—Dean’s snarled at posturing alpha cops over decent apple fritters before, and for one from Heaven Scent Bakery he might actually fight them. Perfectly spiced apples in a delicate dough fried to a gorgeous golden crisp. If he had to give up either pie or those fritters for the rest of his life, it would be a hard choice.

And now this kid is trying to get between him and his fritter. Dean is armed, a holstered gun on his belt under his jacket, but the guy’s got the drop on him and the store is pretty crowded, so he raises his hands in compliance along with everyone else. Just carefully, so as not to flash his piece.

“All of you get in front of the counter. Sit with your backs to the wall. Go, go, now!”

They all go, five people including Dean folding themselves down to the floor. Seated, Dean gets his first real look at the suspect: white alpha male, mid-twenties, shabby clothes, dirt and tarry heroin clogging up his scent. His hand shakes, but not enough to render the weapon any less dangerous.

Dean gets a very good view of the wobble in the barrel when it swings past his face to the omega woman on his left. She squeaks and flinches away, not that there’s anywhere for her to go.

“Empty the register,” the robber commands. His voice wavers, cracks.

Dean revises his estimate of the kid’s age to include late teens with a couple years of drug use aging him up, though he could be as old as thirty. It would be good to narrow it down to try and ID him later, but it’s not Dean’s current top priority. Right now, he wants to get everyone out of here alive. That includes the robber, but if someone has to be hurt, he’s put himself in the position of being the one Dean cares about least.

It goes pretty smoothly to start. The employee wobbles to her feet even though she reeks of terror, gets the drawer open with a minimum of fumbling, and starts stuffing cash into one of the little brown paper bags they have at the counter for pastries. There isn’t a lot, because it’s a bakery and it’s barely past five in the morning; he’s not sure what the kid was thinking. Probably desperate for drugs which makes him desperate for money, but not dopesick enough to try for the gas stations that are the only other thing open at this hour.

But then the sirens start up, distant and getting closer, and the robber freaks out. “No,” he chants, running his free hand through his unkempt hair. “No, no, no, no. Shit. Who called the cops?”

Face hard, he swings around to wave the gun in an arc that passes over most of them. “Which of you fucking bitches called the cops?” He’s agitated and just getting more escalated by the second, and that makes him even more dangerous.

“No one,” Dean tells him, voice low and unthreatening. “We’ve been right here with you the whole time, none of us called them.”

The robber glares at him suspiciously, but any further accusations are put off by the employee at the register holding out the bag and saying, “Here, that’s it, that’s everything.”

The kid shies back, rubbing at his face and head. “Hold on,” he says, “hold on, just let me—let me think a minute. Shit. Shit, shit, what am I gonna do?”

The sirens—and the cops—are right on top of them now. Red and blue stain the inside of the bakery from all their lights. Proud as Dean is of his department’s response time, he almost wishes they’d taken longer; long enough for the suspect to flee. Because now an armed robbery has turned into a barricaded hostage situation, and that’s not a great thing to find himself in the middle of.

He’s not a negotiator. One’s bound to be on the way, but that can take time Dean’s not sure they have as the robber’s panic ramps up enough to overpower the stink of his addiction. So Dean makes a judgment call. He tries to buy some time.

Keeping his scent as calm as his tone even if the kid’s probably damaged his senses too much for that kind of subtlety, he says, “Hey, look. It doesn’t have to be so bad. No one’s hurt.”

“Shut up,” the kid mutters, but it’s already less frantic.

He’s not angry anymore, that was more reaction than anything. Dean almost sympathizes as distress pours off him in waves. Alphas don’t tend to give away that much of their emotional state through their scent glands, unless they’re very young. Evolutionarily unfavorable, or whatever. Broadcasting after puberty usually means trauma.

“We all want the same thing.”

The kid’s eyes snap back to Dean, but he doesn’t try to silence him again. If anything, he’s wordlessly begging for help. He wants someone to save him.

Dean might be able to help with that.

“We all just wanna get out of here, right?”

The kid nods.

“Right now, you’ve got too many people with you here. It’s gonna make them,” he nods at the assembled cars, “nervous. They don’t know you’re not going to hurt us. If you just put down the gun, or let us all walk out of here, then they’ll know. Then no one has to be in danger anymore.”

“I can’t.” Fear spikes his scent again. “I can’t get arrested again. I need—I need you to get out of here.”

The other hostages have been silently scared, their combined emotions almost enough to overwhelm the sweet, freshly baked scent of the pastries. Tentative hope spread as they let Dean try and talk them free, but they grow doubly restless and agitated at the refusal.

“Please,” the beta man a few feet away from Dean begs. “I have kids waiting for me at home, they’re all alone. I just wanted to get them a special treat for breakfast.”

“Don’t!” The kid, predictably in Dean’s opinion, refocuses his questionable aim on the man. “I can’t deal with your problems right now, okay? So just, just don’t.”

Dean intervenes again before things can get worse. “Seems to me you only need one hostage to negotiate. Less complicated for you, you know? Fewer people freaking out, fewer scents to irritate you.”

As the kid considers this, everyone holds their breath. He looks like he’s nearly swayed, so Dean pushes his advantage—gently. “I’ll stay. I don’t want to be any trouble,” he says, which isn’t a lie. He doesn’t want trouble; but if there’s going to be anymore trouble, he’d much rather it happen with just the two of them and their two guns in play. Starting a shootout with anyone else around is out of the question.

“You’re an omega?” the kid says, hesitant. “That should be fine.”

Picking up on Dean’s identity means he can probably smell more than Dean gave him credit for. It also earns him another mark for stupidity in Dean’s book, because no one really still buys into the renaissance ideal of pacifist omegas. But it plays into the harmless impression he’s trying to give off, so he nods instead of rolling his eyes.

It’s enough to settle the kid. “Okay,” he says, “okay. Just you, that’s—that’s good, I can work with that. The rest of you, one at a time.”

Now that he has a working plan, even if it wasn’t his to begin with, the robber calms down. He even orders the other hostages out one by one, instead of letting them all rush the door—or him. It’s probably the only tactically sound thing he’s done all morning, which is disappointing. Dean would’ve appreciated the distraction, if only to get a chance to assess his options in the small store.

That’s all right, though. What really matters is that they’re alone. The four others have all made it out the doors. They’re hurried away to safety and probably some pretty intense questioning, but they’re out. The store is otherwise empty.

It’s not until the lingering traces of the others’ scents fade away, with the kid alternately staring after them and glancing at Dean, that Dean realizes he’s made a potentially disastrous miscalculation. Because as the air clears, another scent drifts in from the back. At first Dean thinks it’s just more pastries baking, the sweet sugar and warm dough, a touch of butter and chocolate, and spiced apples. But Dean’s met a lot of donuts in his life, and none of them ever smelled like distressed omega, a sour milk that spoils the best thing Dean’s ever smelled.

Unfortunately, the kid notices at about the same time Dean does. His hard-won calm is gone in an instant and he’s introducing the barrel of his gun to Dean’s forehead way more intimately than Dean would like. Dean’s also not especially excited about the way the kid yells for the unknown omega to come out “right the fuck now or I’ll blow his brains out, I fucking will!”

The man’s out in seconds, hands up and wide eyes on the point of connection between the gun and Dean’s head. The tang of fear grows stronger, but neither his pace nor his glare falters as he makes his way around the counter. Admirable as that is, Dean wishes he could tell the guy that conciliatory is the way to play this. It has nothing to do with omega weakness and everything to do with staying alive; it’s the same for betas and alphas.

Dean’s fellow hostage must have missed that memo, because as soon as the kid demands, “Are you the one who called the cops?” he all but snarls back, “Yes.” There’s not the slightest hint of apology in it.

“Fuck! You really screwed things up, you know. It didn’t have to go like this!”

“No,” the man agrees, still hard as steel. “You could have not tried to rob my store, then none of it would’ve had to happen at all. But you did, so here we are.”

“Fuck you!” the kid spits. He’s so furious that Dean’s honestly surprised he doesn’t shoot the man right there. Glad, but surprised. “Just, fuck, just sit down and let me think.” He ushers the man to the floor beside Dean with a wave of his gun, and fortunately the man obeys.

The man’s barely made contact with the ground when the large shop window explodes in a shatter of glass and all hell breaks loose.

Dean throws himself on top of the other man on instinct, sheltering him from the worst of the concussive blast. He doesn’t have time to cover his ears, barely gets his eyes closed before the bang goes off in a blinding flash. Even with them shut, it’s bright enough to make his vision swim with spots to accompany the ringing in his ears. The disorientation clears slowly, but eventually he regains bits and pieces of his surroundings.

There’s a lot of shouting nearby; he can’t tell which direction or what they’re saying. There’s a body underneath him, and thankfully he can feel its chest moving with regular breaths. No, not regular—deep. The baker has his face tucked all the way into Dean’s neck, nose buried in his collar. Scenting him.

He stays there long enough, inhales more deeply, than simple shock can justify. So Dean has to reciprocate; it would almost be rude not to at this point, and besides, he liked the guy’s scent from a distance. This close, he understands what’s going through the man’s head. He also has to laugh, because his life is an absolutely ridiculous thing. Of course this is how Dean finds him.

This man, this stubborn omega who smells like sweet dough and baked apples and thunderous rage and all the best things in the world, is his. No wonder the apple fritters here taste like heaven and home; Dean’s mate makes them.

They don’t separate until a handful of officers in full SWAT gear descend on them—which can’t actually be much after Dean first loses himself in the curve of his mate’s neck. Dean knows there’s no way the two of them would have been left alone for hours hunched on the floor, glass and chaos around them, but that’s what it feels like before the police and medical personnel manage to break through their shared daze to disarm Dean and force them apart so they can be evaluated.

Not very far apart, though. Their ambulances are parked one next to the other, so as soon as Dean’s done following the medic’s finger with his eyes to prove he doesn’t have a concussion, he turns to the left and finds his mate staring right back at him. The man’s eyes are blue and intense, making Dean shiver; it’ll be a few hours before his mating heat builds, but he already feels fevered with excitement.

“I’m Dean,” he says when he can’t stand not talking to his mate any longer. “Hi.”

“Hello, Dean. I’m Castiel. Cas.”

“Cas. Castiel,” Dean echoes. It’s a beautiful name, perfect for his perfect mate.

The medic attending Cas looks between them, sniffs, and grins. “Did you two just meet?”

“Yeah,” Dean says at the same time Cas says, “Yes.” He can smell Cas’s pleasure even at this distance, and he’s sure everyone around them can smell the same from him.

“Winchester!”

Apparently the would-be robber has been dealt with sufficiently, because a bunch of Dean’s coworkers are crowding into his space with their helmets off. It’s not his squad—they’re probably just rolling in now to get ready for their shift—but still officers he knows, people he’s worked with. At any other time, he’d be glad to see them after what he’s been through. But right now, they’re blocking his view of Cas and he needs his mate.

He’s jumping down from the lip of the ambulance before he knows it, pushing through them, ignoring the protest of his medic until Cas is back in his sight. Finding Cas’s eyes again is such a relief that he doesn’t even mind the knowing chuckles of his colleagues as they work it out.

“Congrats, man!” Cuevas says, clapping him on the shoulder.

Zeddmore leans over to ask Corbett, “Do you think this means we get free donuts all the time now?”

Dean doesn’t have time to answer any of them, because Cas is also on his feet and closing the short—too long—distance between them. Everyone else fades away once Cas is in his space, close enough to kiss.

“May I kiss you, Dean?” he asks.

Whether it’s Dean’s desire feeding the question or they’re just that in sync doesn’t really matter. There’s no possible answer to it other than: “Yes, please, yes.”

Cas tastes just as good as he smells, warm sugar and spice and hints of pastry. His kiss feels like a claim, a precursor to the bites they’ll exchange soon; it’s no less possessive for not being a permanent mark. It’s easy for Dean to match Cas’s fervor, their lips and tongues moving heatedly together not in competition, but cooperation. He barely registers the catcalling around them.

As far as headlines go, _Cop Saves Newfound Mate in Donut Store Robbery_ isn’t much less embarrassing. Still, when his squad gifts him with a framed copy of the article, he hangs it shamelessly on the inside of his locker. And no one really gives him too hard of a time about it; they wouldn’t dare risk being cut off from Cas’s baking.


End file.
